Aboriginal jail numbers 'a national tragedy'

Aboriginal children are 28 times more likely than other Australian children to be sent to a juvenile detention centre, the report on indigenous youth in the criminal justice system found.

The report comes as the government strives to close the life expectancy gap of more than a decade between Aboriginal people and other Australians by addressing poor health, unemployment, low education levels and alcohol and drug abuse.

The government has cracked down on child sexual abuse in Outback Aboriginal communities in recent years by banning alcohol and pornography and by restricting what Aboriginals' welfare checks can buy.

While Aboriginals make up an impoverished minority of only 2.5 per cent of Australia's 22 million population, they represent 25 per cent of the country's prison population. Aboriginal children accounting for 59 per cent of inmates in Australian juvenile detention centres.

"The over-representation of indigenous youth in the criminal justice system is a national crisis," the report said.

Some 20 years ago, a major government inquiry into Aboriginal suicides and suspicious deaths in prisons made more than 300 recommendations aimed at keeping more Aboriginal people out of jail.

But in the past decade alone, the imprisonment rate for Aboriginals has soared 66 per cent, the report said, adding: "This is a national tragedy, and questions must be raised as to why the situation has worsened."

The 346-page report - by a committee of seven government and opposition lawmakers specialising in indigenous issues - made 40 wide-ranging recommendations that attack many underlying causes for young indigenous Australians getting in trouble with police. The government has yet to respond.

Mick Gooda, a government-appointed Aboriginal social justice commissioner, urged the government to implement the recommendations as soon as possible, saying in a statement: "We must act now before we lose another generation to the criminal justice system."